Omega (modded Dets) Or Forceware?

Marik_Steele

<div class="IPBDescription">wondering if the upgrade truly goes "up"</div> I've been using the latest <a href='http://www.omegacorner.com/index_nvidia.html' target='_blank'>OmegaCorner NVidia drivers</a> for several months now. They're based on NVidia's 45.23 Detonator driver, but have several tweaks for things like higher image quality -- comparison screenies are available at the link above.
Since the guy making them seems to be getting much warmer support from ATI than NVidia, unofficial endorsement compared to near lawsuit, there's no word on whether he'll modify the 50 series of NVidia drivers. I've been wondering whether I should finally upgrade to the 53.03 series of ForceWare drivers from NVidia. However, I remember reading on <a href='http://www.Hardocp.com' target='_blank'>[H]ardOCP</a> and other such sites that some of the performance tweaks NVidia's claimed to make actually <i>decrease</i> image quality, and I'm not the type who likes to sacrifice realistic looks just so I can have a framerate of 50fps instead of 40fps.

Is the upgrade really going upwards? Is there any other reason I'm unaware of that could convince me download 53.03?

[edit]I'm currently running an NVidia GeForce 2 GTS/Pro as my primary card, and a 3dFX Voodoo4 as my secondary monitor's card. Can't remember whether the primary card is the GTS or Pro model, and please -- I can understand why you'd want to laugh at the age of both, but at least follow it up by suggesting which ATI card model is a good enough deal to replace it with this holiday season.

Sandrock

I'd stick with the driver you are using now. The Forceware drivers are supposed to be optimized for Nvidia's FX line of videocards and there have been stories of decreased performance on older hardware. And you are correct, some of Nvidia's optimizations do include lowering the image quality.

For a replacement card, the Radeon 9600 series are good value mid-range cards. Performance-wise, you'll be good for at least another 2-3 years. Price-wise, you can get a 9600 XT 256MB card for just under $200, and the 128MB version for just over $150.

Fina

I tried the latest Det 50 driver release for Windows 98 the other day. It was awful... at least in the one game I played, Tribes2. I play that game every day, and having the drivers drop my FPS from 80-120 to around 30-50 is UNACCEPTABLE.

I didn't try any other games. I had seen enough and went back to the 45.23 drivers.